Let me tell you about a conversation that changed how I think about coaching forever.

I was sitting across from a VP of technology at a mid-sized investment firm, and she looked genuinely puzzled. “Patrick,” she said, “I can see my managers coaching. It’s happening in hallways, in one-on-ones, everywhere. But here’s what I don’t get: Kelly’s team is crushing it. They hit every deadline, people are growing like crazy. But Lee’s team? Equally talented people, same resources, but they’re stuck in the same patterns, missing deadlines, losing people.”

And here’s the kicker: both managers cared deeply about their teams. Both were investing time. Both wanted to develop their people.

So what was the difference? It wasn’t effort. It wasn’t intention. It was operating system.

Why Ad-Hoc Coaching Fails

Here’s what I’ve learned across dozens of organizations: Ad-hoc coaching produces anecdotes. Coaching systems produce compounding results.

When coaching happens randomly (a feedback conversation here, a development discussion there) you get wildly inconsistent outcomes. Some people thrive under natural coaches. Others stagnate under well-meaning managers who lack systematic approaches. And everybody suffers from the variance.

High-performing organizations? They treat coaching like any other core process, that is, with governance, rhythms, artifacts, metrics, and enablement. They build what I call a “Coaching Operating System.”

Building the System

I worked with that VP to build exactly this kind of system. We created five interconnected components: governance (executive sponsorship and accountability), rhythms (weekly 1:1s, monthly skills workshops, quarterly reviews), artifacts (scorecards, templates, team matrices), metrics (coaching cadence, goal clarity, delivery rates), and enablement (toolkits, peer learning, dashboards).

Instead of hoping managers would figure it out, we gave them repeatable processes. We measured what percentage of planned coaching actually happened and tied it to performance metrics they already tracked.

The Results

Six months later? The transformation was remarkable:

On-time delivery improved 17 percent. Employee engagement jumped from 6.2 to 7.8. Time-to-productivity for new hires dropped 23 percent.

But here’s what really got my attention: Performance variance between teams decreased by 61 percent. High-performing teams stayed strong while struggling teams caught up dramatically.

The VP’s reflection said it all: “We finally stopped leaving people development to chance.”

Your Next Step

Look at your current coaching approach. Is it systematic or ad-hoc?

Choose one rhythm to institutionalize next month. Weekly development-focused 1:1s. Monthly team strengths reviews. Quarterly role discussions. Whatever fits. Add it to your calendar now before other meetings claim the time.

Pick one metric: coaching cadence adherence. Aim for 85 percent completion. This tells you whether your system is actually being used.

Here’s the hard truth: systems beat good intentions every time. Your managers aren’t failing because they don’t care. They’re struggling because they lack a repeatable system.

Build one component at a time. Watch consistent excellence replace random success.